A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the project in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
